University of Virginia Library

Timber Bill

The Imperiled Forests

By Dick Hickman

Last Thursday the U.S. House of
Representatives refused to consider
the National Forest Conservation
and Management Act of 1969 (HR
12025, S 1832). Thanks to the
efforts of conservation groups such
as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness
Society, the motion to consider
this bill, which would have
opened up vast areas of national
forests to private lumbering, was
defeated.

According to the Washington
Post, "The bill would have set up a
special fund from sale of timber to
finance a program for increasing the
timber yield in national forests. It
was approved by the House Agriculture
Committee and presented as a
means of providing more lumber to
build more houses. The nation is
short of both."

Groups and individuals
concerned with the future of our
natural environment, however, have
opposed this bill and have succeeded
in dealing it a temporary
set-back. Undoubtedly, the bill will
be brought up again, and the
powerful timber lobby may have
more support next time. Concerned
citizens should understand the
motives behind the legislation, and
should be especially aware of the
ambiguities of the present bill. If
these loopholes are not changed in
subsequent bills, our national forests
will be in grave danger.

A recent editorial in the New
York Times explained the major
reasons for opposing the controversial
bill:

A projected raid on the national
forests, up for vote in the House
this week, is reminiscent in some
ways of the "lumber baron" days
of the nineteenth century though
much more subtle. The so-called
National Timber Supply Act would
allow these great tracts of nationally-owned
timber land to be
subjected to heavy cutting pressure
in contravention of established
Forest Service practices and in
disregard of long-range conservation
aims.

At the present time, the bill has
not been killed; however, the
motion to take it up was defeated
last Thursday. Considering the
power of the Forest Products
Political Education Committee, as
the timber lobby is euphemistically
known, it will surely be brought up
again.

It is not surprising that most of
the sponsors of this bill have been
financially rewarded for their efforts.
As Jack Anderson reported in
the Washington Post, the second ranking
member of the House
Agriculture Committee, John L.
McMillan of South Carolina, received
$500 during his 1968 campaign,
which he failed to report
under the Federal Corrupt Practices
Act.

A few representatives, including
Wilber Mills, Chairman of the Ways
and Means Committee, have refused
contributions from the forest products
lobby. However, most of the
sponsors of the bill have allegedly
received contributions during their
campaigns, including Sam Steiger
(R-Ariz.), John Dellenback (Rare.),
Harold Johnson (R-Calif.),
Catherine May (R-Wash.), Arnold
Olsen (D-Ore.), and Wendell Wyatt
(R-Ore.).

Besides this obvious power in
the legislative branch, the timber
forces have an important contact in
the Agriculture Department, Edgar
F. Behrens, executive assistant to
Secretary of Agriculture Clifford
Hardin. Behrins has for years served
as one of the directors of the
timber lobby.

The many opponents of the
timber bill feel that it is vital that
members of the House hear more, as
soon as possible, from their constituencies
on this bill. According to
the Wilderness Society, there are
several reasons why the bill should
not be accepted.

1. It would make logging the
dominant use of the 186-million
acre national Forest system, at the
expense of the other vital public
interest (water supply, wildlife,
grazing, recreation, scenic preservation,
wilderness) provided for under
existing laws.

2. It would immediately accelerate
tree-cutting at a rate faster
than essential replacement growth.

3. It would increase and intensify
manipulative forest management
(including road building), at
the cost of disastrous environmental
impacts such as widespread
scenic defacement and pesticide
and fertilizer contamination.

4. It would allow a grab for
national forest timber to meet an
unproved U.S. lumber shortage
although several billion board feet
of U.S. Timber a year are now being
exported and abundant private
timberland potential have yet to be
developed through sound management
programs.

5. It would jeopardize many
potential wilderness areas, as well as
the establishment of new recreational
wildlife areas.

The timber industry wants this
bill to be passed so that it can
obtain cheap lumber from public
lands without having to use its own
timberland, and also to hide the
fact that it has not been managing
its own land as well as it could
have.

Conservationists and environmentalists
united to stop this bill
from being passed, if only temporarily.
Next time we may not be so
lucky.